Posted on 03/08/2002 5:34:52 AM PST by chance33_98
H2 CLASS="StoryHead">Lawyer: Driver Is Not A Monster
FORT WORTH, Texas -- A woman accused of hitting a homeless man with her car, driving home with him lodged in her broken windshield and ignoring his pleas as he bled to death in her garage is not the monster being portrayed by prosecutors, her attorney said.
Police said Chante J. Mallard, 25, waited two days for the man to die, ignoring his pleas for help, and then dumped his body in a park with the help of friends.
Mallard was charged with murder Wednesday night and released after posting bail. She faces five years to life in prison if convicted.
"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to be," said Mike Heiskell, Mallard's attorney. "She was simply a frightened, emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a wrong choice."
Heiskell said his client is guilty only of failing to stop and render aid -- not murder.
He said the victim, Gregory Biggs, died a few hours after Mallard drove home and was in her garage no more than 24 hours. He said her friends advised her not to call for help and suggested dumping the body.
Biggs, whose body was found in a park on Oct. 27, suffered cuts and broken legs but had no internal injuries that would have caused his death, according to the medical examiner's office.
"There's a pretty good possibility he'd be alive if he'd gotten help, but she concealed the body in the garage ... so that's why she's charged with murder," Fort Worth Police Lt. David Burgess said.
When Biggs' body was found, authorities suspected he had been hit by a car, but they had no leads until a tipster came forward last week.
Biggs, 37, had struggled with mental illness and had been staying at a homeless shelter, where workers said he often brought them flowers. He was estranged from his mother and sister. He also had a 19-year-old son who only recently found out about the tragic death, relatives said.
The son, Brandon Biggs, has questions for Mallard, but he said he isn't angry.
"I pray for her, actually," the high school senior told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Friday's editions.
"I'd just like to talk to her -- just ask questions and see why, to get a better understanding I suppose," he said.
Police reported finding Biggs' blood and hair on Mallard's car, still in her garage more than four months after the crash. The windshield and front seats had been removed.
The tipster told police that Mallard said she was drinking and taking the drug Ecstasy one night in October when her car hit the man along a Fort Worth highway near her house.
The tipster said Mallard drove home, had sex with her boyfriend, then went back to the garage to find Biggs still alive, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
In her statement to police, however, Mallard said she felt "like someone had slipped her something" and did not mention any drug use, the Dallas Morning-News reported in Friday's editions. Heiskell said the tipster's claims were embellishments.
"This was not a friend of Chante's. In fact, they were enemies," he said. He added that the tipster wanted to portray Mallard "in the worse light possible."
Mallard later told investigators she apologized to the victim when she returned to the garage several times, but she never called for help as he moaned and pleaded with her, according to the affidavit.
"We intend to prosecute this fully," said Richard Alpert, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney.
Mallard told investigators she removed the car seats and burned them because she was afraid of being caught and going to jail, according to the affidavit. She planned to burn the car and buy another one after receiving her income tax refund, according to the affidavit.
Charges may be filed against the friends who helped dump Biggs' body, Burgess said.
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Well, you're wrong on both counts. I didn't assume anything. As for the Texas mother who killed her five children, demon possession is the most likely explanation. She was out in zombieland and didn't even try to hide her crime. The windshield murderer, on the other hand, was cold, calculating, and had full possession of her faculties (and she had two days to sober up if she was on something). You can see the difference, can't you?
See my post #17. And no I paid no attention to her name at the time. I was just questioning if she would be tried for a hate crime in Texas.
One might say such things just to get "close enough".
LOL! She may show up on Oprah...maybe she should write a book...
Possible title--"That Sexist Pig ALWAYS Criticized My Driving"
Not at all, I am certain that any race of people is capable of such cold-hearted crime. I do, however, feel that blacks in America in 2002 are far more likely to commit such crimes than whites in America in 2002. FBI violent crime and murder statistics back me up completely. How do you respond to that?
Don't forget that you are the one that asked someone to call you a racist. Based on the evidence, I obliged you. Have a nice day.
How you can even try to compare these two cases is beyond me. For starters, how many of the mother's friends helped her conceal the crime, a crime that she didn't even try to conceal herself? It's the difference between insanity (or demon possession), and a cold blooded kidnapper/torturer/ murderer who had the full support of her "community" (minus the one who had a conscience and spilled the beans) in hiding her viscious crime.
"Accessory to murder" is a more appropriate charge.
After reading all the details, I'm not especially shocked by what I read. The lack of respect for any life, and the ability to engage in cold, criminal acts is common in Detroit. We haven't had anything this bad recently, or more probably, it's been kept out of the media. We have had a mother and her four kids shot up, with one dying, because her boyfriend bought a stolen ghetto blaster with $40 in counterfeit money.
We have a subculture where life is cheap, and you can kill for the slightest reason. And one has plenty of friends that share that same view, and will assist you without batting an eyelash.I can bet you there is no outrage over this murder in that subculture. Except maybe that this poor woman is being oppressed by "the man", just like that white guy that attacked her by throwing himself through her windshield.
So what about those FBI statistics?
That bitch didn't look too "little" to me in the photo.
Perhaps the judge had a sense of humor. Or perhaps he was just hoping some enraged citizens would alleviate the need for a lengthy and costly trial process.
Frankly, I'm surprised they let her out on bail, considering the way even the defense doesn't want the defendant out on the street in the Westerfield case.
Tom, I agree with your take. After exposure to the Chante "type", I can tell you I will bet on it that she did not go in there saying she was sorry but asked "Are you dead yet you son of a b*tch?" I say this because I have been exposed to black women like this where white mena and women have been dehumanized in thier eyes. I had a black woman go up to a mutual friend whose home I stayed at one night(I had never met this woman before) and ask what that "white b*tch" is doing here. As if I was not even there and having never met me before, ever! It's not hard to imagine if Chante had this same attitude that she didn't see Biggs as anymore than a fly on her windshield, subhuman in her eyes. She's likely sorry now only because she got caught. Thank you Jesse Jackson, NAACP, and others who made moments like this possible.
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