Posted on 06/24/2003 9:44:15 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
LIVE streaming video of the Chante Mallard Trial
Here is the link. It requires RealPlayer I believe:
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=5882
Tuesday 06-24-2003
Gregory Biggs
Chante Mallard
Chante Mallard (left) is accused of striking
Gregory Biggs with her car and leaving him
to die in the windshield.
Here is the link of the LIVE streaming video from The Dallas Morning News :
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=5882
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Chante Mallard Murder Trial ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Jurors in windshield death trial shown pictures of car06/24/2003
FORT WORTH – Testimony resumed Tuesday in the case of Chante Mallard, who is accused of striking a homeless man with her car in October 2001, driving home with him entangled in her windshield and leaving him to die on the car in her garage.
Jurors in Fort Worth district court briefly were shown photographs of the damaged car on Tuesday, then left the courtroom while defense attorneys questioned a forensic expert who examined blood stains found inside the car.
Ms. Mallard's best friend testified Monday that Ms. Mallard was high on drugs and alcohol when she hit Gregory Biggs with her car and helped dump his body in a park.
"I told her she needs to dial 911. She started screaming and yelling," said Titilesse "T" Caree Fry, who said she smoked marijuana with Ms. Mallard and gave her half a pill of the drug ecstasy hours before Ms. Mallard hit Mr. Biggs while driving to her Fort Worth home.
Ms. Mallard is charged with murder in Mr. Biggs' death. She pleaded guilty Monday morning to a second, lesser charge – tampering with evidence – before opening arguments in the case began.
After the accident, Ms. Mallard sought refuge in Ms. Fry's Fort Worth apartment, Ms. Fry testified Monday. She said Ms. Mallard asked whether she and two male friends could use Ms. Fry's car to dispose of Mr. Biggs' body. Ms. Fry said she refused.
"She told me not to say anything," Ms. Fry said.
She testified that Ms. Mallard called her in the middle of the night, asking her to pick up Ms. Mallard at her house. When Ms. Fry arrived, she said, she "saw the backside of the body hanging, sort of lodged in the window" of Ms. Mallard's car.
Ms. Mallard and the two men later dumped Mr. Biggs' body in a Fort Worth park, Ms. Fry said. Herbert Cleveland and Clete Jackson have pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in exchange for their testimony in the case.
Also Online
Video:Yolanda Walker reports
Defense attorney Jeff Kearney told the 12-member jury and two alternates that Ms. Mallard is a victim of circumstance. Mr. Kearney argued that Mr. Jackson masterminded the plan to dispose of Mr. Biggs' body.
"Clete Jackson took charge immediately," Mr. Kearney said.
Ms. Mallard's hitting Mr. Biggs with her car, then driving home to her house "is not murder," Mr. Kearney told the jury in his opening remarks. "It was just the end of the first part of this nightmare."
"Chante was messed up," said Mr. Kearney, explaining that she repeatedly apologized to Mr. Biggs as he lay entangled in her car windshield. "She was convinced that the man was dead, and I don't think there will be a question on the evidence that he was."
Prosecutors on Monday painted a portrait of a woman who had ample opportunity to seek aid for her victim but instead tried to cover up her actions.
"It was almost the perfect crime," Tarrant County prosecutor Christy Jack told jurors in her opening statement.
Ms. Jack described Mr. Biggs' body being found in a south Fort Worth park, and how investigators were initially puzzled about how the man died.
"The picture wasn't right and the pieces didn't fit," she said. "The body had been dumped and no one saw a thing. Chante Mallard nearly got away with murder."
Ms. Jack said Ms. Mallard stopped at least once on her way home after the accident to try to free Mr. Biggs' body from her vehicle.
"She was faced with the first of many defining moments," the prosecutor said.
Ms. Jack told jurors that Ms. Mallard could have sought assistance at a convenience store or even a nearby fire station but chose to return to her home.
"She finally did make a call, but the help wasn't for him," Ms. Jack said of Mr. Biggs. "The help was for her."
Several jurors briefly turned away or held their hands to their mouths when the prosecution displayed photographs of Mr. Biggs' half-naked, mangled body, his broken legs bent backward.
Police said Ms. Mallard struck Mr. Biggs as he walked along U.S. Highway 287 near Loop 820. Mr. Biggs, a former school bus driver and bricklayer who was homeless at the time, was not killed immediately, police said. Tarrant County officials have ruled that Mr. Biggs died hours after being struck by the car.
The three-person prosecution team called a half-dozen witnesses Monday, including two Fort Worth police officers, a Fort Worth firefighter and the mother of Maranda Daniel, a former friend of Ms. Mallard who said she overheard her talking about hitting Mr. Biggs. She later told Tarrant County sheriffs' officials about the conversation, which led to Ms. Mallard's arrest.
Detective Don Owings told jurors Monday that in a search at Ms. Mallard's home, he saw a car with the seats missing and the windshield and rear glass broken. Prosecutors said dark staining on the floorboard was blood. Burned car seats were found in the yard, they said.
Detective Owings said Ms. Mallard was not mistreated or coerced before giving him a statement acknowledging she had struck Mr. Biggs.
"She was upset. She had cried some," he said. "But she allowed me to take the statement."
Staff writer Laurie Fox contributed to this report.
E-mail dlevinthal@dallasnews.com
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/062403dnmetmallardplea.73642.html
If anyone has trouble with the link of the Streaming Video, here is the link to the DMN where I got it. Currently, it's near the top of the page, just below the article titled Jurors in windshield death trial shown pictures of car
06-23-2003
Trial begins in death-by-windshield case
06-22-2003
Windshield case: Was it murder?
(Chante Mallard Murder Trial)06-18-2003
Windshield case attracts spotlight -
Mallard trial focuses natl media, legal eye on FW courts again
03-07-2002:
Man Lives 2 Days Stuck In Broken Windshield
(THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE - The woman should be SHOT!)
03-07-2002:
Police: Hit-Run Victim Lived Two Days Trapped in Windshield of Woman's Car
03-07-2002:
Texas Woman Charged With Allowing Hit-and-Run Victim to Die in Broken Windshield
03-07-2002:
Hit-and-run victim lodged in windshield for days
03-08-2002:
Woman accused of hitting man, leaving him to die on windshield
[Lawyer says case "overblown"]
03-08-2002:
Update on Man in Windshield story-
Woman had sex while man was dying in garage, "A mistake" she says
03-08-2002:
Police: Hit-run victim left to die in car windshield
03-09-2002:
Windshield death suspect back in jail - Bail raised to $250,000 -
Informant Receives Death Threats
03-13-2002:
Man died in hours, doctor says -
Windshield Hit & Run Murder Charge Stands - Suspect Still in Jail
03-15-2002:
Son sues suspect in windshield fatality -
Murder Suspect Still in Jail
This woman didn't begin her alcohol and drug-induced ride home with the intention of killing this unfortunate homeless man. But when she hit him and did nothing to obtain assistance, that's when she became a calculated killer, even to the extent of organizing others to help her hide the crime.
A little bit of Texas justice here wouldn't hurt.
Yes, and it seems that Life in prison is as far as that bit of Texas Justice will allow for this horrible crime.There is a break in the trial right now, so for anyone trying to see it, and if it's BLANK right now, then that is why.
Thanks, Liz !!
. . . and had sex with (one of?) her boyfriend(s). Did that ever get proved or disproved? I haven't seen it mentioned on any of the trial coverage.You know, I don't recall it being brought up in the trial either. It might yet, but who knows ? Good observation.
I am sure that's right. I believe TWO folks got lesser sentences in exchange for testifying against Chante.
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