Windshield death suspect back in jail
Posted on 03/09/2002 2:34:29 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Windshield death suspect back in jail
Bail raised to $250,000; FW woman taken into custody for third time
03/09/2002
FORT WORTH - A woman accused of hitting a man with her car and leaving him to die, entangled in her windshield, returned to jail Friday when a judge raised her bail from $10,000 to $250,000.
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Even if the bail is met, Ms. Mallard will spend the weekend in jail. Probation officers in charge of monitoring bond conditions cannot pick her up until Monday morning, said Lt. Mack West, jail supervisor.
Her bond conditions, which 371st District Judge James Wilson set during a hearing, include being under house arrest at her parents' Fort Worth home, wearing an electronic monitor, no driving, no alcohol use, and drug testing three times a week.
LAWRENCE JENKINS / DMN Dorothy Ballard (left) accompanies her daughter, Chante J. Mallard, to the court hearing in Fort Worth. |
Judge Wilson also placed a gag order on Ms. Mallard's lawyer and on prosecutors in the case. Her parents attended the hearing but declined to comment.
Ms. Mallard, a nurse's aide who was fired Thursday after the murder charge became public, sobbed in the courtroom and continually dabbed her eyes with a tissue before sheriff's deputies led her away.
During the hourlong hearing, defense attorney Mike Heiskell brought Ms. Mallard's parents and her brother, a lieutenant with the Fort Worth Fire Department, to testify about the former Girl Scout's willingness to attend future court proceedings.
"I guarantee you she's not going anywhere. She doesn't have anywhere to go and doesn't know where to go," Mr. Heiskell said, asking the judge to "look past the emotion and determine what is right and just."
But Assistant District Attorney Richard Alpert argued that the $10,000 bond Ms. Mallard posted Wednesday was insufficient and that she has an unstable work history and sought counseling only after she was charged in Mr. Biggs' death.
"It's no secret the community is outraged by her actions," Mr. Alpert said. "This defendant has friends who helped her cover up the crime."
Police said Ms. Mallard struck Mr. Biggs in October as he walked along U.S. Highway 287 near the Loop 820 split, and then drove home with him entangled in her windshield.
Although he was severely injured, Mr. Biggs, a former school bus driver and bricklayer who was homeless at the time of the accident, was not dead, police said. Ms. Mallard left him trapped in her car, which she hid in the garage of her home on the south side of Fort Worth, investigators said.
Police said that Ms. Mallard repeatedly apologized to the injured man, checking on him several times over a two- or three-day period, but that she never summoned help. After Mr. Biggs died, Ms. Mallard and at least one friend dumped his body in a nearby park, where he was found Oct. 27, police said.
A woman came to police in February, saying Ms. Mallard admitted to the crime at a party, police said. Investigators questioned Ms. Mallard and arrested her Feb. 26 on a felony charge of failure to stop and render aid.
Mrs. Mallard posted a $5,000 bond that day, but she was arrested a second time after police upgraded the charge to murder Wednesday. She was released that day after posting a $10,000 bond.
A trial date has not been set.
Police said Friday that they are continuing to investigate the case and are looking for anyone else who may have helped dump Mr. Biggs' body.
E-mail ncalaway@dallasnews.com
She Will Walk
In Fort Worth, Texas? Want to bet?
I don’t care if she was high or drunk. She was coherent enough to find her way home,she was able to park her car in the garage to hide what she had done. If she had been seriously impaired one would think that she might have stopped her vehicle due to her inability to drive.
Don’t give these people the opportunity to minimize her actions due to physical impairment, which of course if present, was her own doing.
That would be true only if he survived the ordeal. However, he didn't, so this is more likely second-degree murder.
She's a nurse's assistant and she refused to give him aid over a two-day period? I'd argue that constitutes premeditation and malice aforethought with respect to anything that occurred after she drove home and sobered up...and I bet I could convince a jury to agree with me. At the least it is a depraved heart murder, but I think there is a strong argument for First Degree murder since she failed to render aid to him and had to know the eventual results of her deliberate inaction.
Ms. Mallard should thank her lucky stars that I'm not sitting on that jury.
I hate to say this, and it makes me sick to my stomach but:
I have that same sick feeling...hopefully we're wrong. I want to know where her co-conspirators are.
Well...conspiracy to commit murder and being an accomplice to murder is a serious charge. However, if she has a Clintonite activist bleeding-heart judge, you may be right.
That would be an infringment of her right to choose (abortion). Everybody should know that one must have sex before you can have an abortion (although science is comming up with new ways.) The judge is probably looking to keep his option of being appointed to the federal bench open in the current climate.
I think she should be in jail without bond. She is a threat to the entire community and probably a flight risk. She has shown her main concern is staying out of jail, not concern for others or the law. As such, there would be nothing to keep her in the area, even more so now that she's been fired.
Then I think the D.A. should charge her with murder. She had no premeditated intent while driving her car and then striking him, but she obviously knew (and hoped) the poor man would die in her garage....so she could dump him and "no one would find out" what she did----knowingly allowing him to die, stuck in her car in a garage for days, is premeditated murder, IMO.
Knowing he was slowly dying while in agony and suffering....even people don't let their dogs or horses suffer and die the way she let this man die. This is the most disgusting thing I've ever read. It's shocking and appalling.
Nurses aid. Does all those dirty jobs nurses don't want to. Empty bedpans, make the beds, give baths, bring water, mop any spills, etc. Doesn't take a lot of training.
But why indicate her membership in Girl Scouts? It's not germane to the story. Had she been a man, with a membership in the Boy Scouts, it would have been an acrimonious association. BSA would have been tarred as a racist organization (we do have a racial differential after all). Why no talk of a hate crime in the cover up?
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