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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Can we find out if he was gay?
"She drove with Biggs from 820 (freeway) up Highway 287 to her house. If I remember right, that section of Highway 287 in that area of Ft. Worth is,ironically, also named Martin L King Jr Freeway."
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And nobody saw this? Maybe I missed something.....
How many miles approx. did this lady drive? Has this been reported?
If these assertions are true, then Ms. Mallard should be charged with DUI, kidnapping, torture, and first degree murder. This was not “failing to stop and render aid”. She made a choice to let a man die to hide her guilt in a DUI accident. That a premeditated action and that’s 1st degree murder.
What an amazingly callous, selfish women. What amazingly callous friends she has. Why didn’t one of them call police immediately? Maybe they should be charged with conspiracy.
Sheesh, this guy would try to plea-bargain a sodomy charge down to "following too closely."
"How is this "way worse" than dragging a man behind your car until he's completely decapitated and otherwise mangled and dismembered? Liberals are just as digusted by this as conservatives. Why are you politicizing this?"
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While I'll agree with the premise of your first question.
And I'll give you a pass on your middle statement...as that remains to be seen.
But I'm mildly dumbfounded by your last question...As the question is profoundly (...and I don't mean this personally...) ignorant. IF...you cannot see the blatant dichotomy...I can lead you to the facts...but I cannot make you understand them.
FWIW---
Ol' SpParky is/was in Florida. Texas is an injection state.
"She was on her way to nursing class!"
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Well......she could have been a driving instructor.
FRegards,
Since when is concealing a body murder? I hope this Dick Tracey can put more together than that. The murder charge will arise most likely out of the fact he was alive when she had returned home, and she let him die. In other words murder by inaction as opposed to action...Just running someone over is not murder, its premeditation and/or intent and the dying part that makes it murder...the fact she let him die makes it premeditated instead of what would be normally manslaughter.
My two cents
In an other bizzare twist, police have learned that she later tried to take the car to a car wash...with his body still lodged in the windshield.
No, time to get the bag of Normal Saline, IV line, and hyperdermic needle ready.
In fact, the mere act of imprisoning him in her home and not allowing him to leave and receive medical attention might qualify as kidnapping, which is a felony. In most states anytime a person dies during the commission of a felony, it is "felony murder," and whether or not she intended to kill him is irrelevant.
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