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.
Video |
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
I certainly hope that's not true. In Texas, we don't think too much of people that kill other people. This is attrocious, horrendous and beyond verbal description. She will get the maximum penalty allowed, IMHO. . .
At least, I hope so.
I believe the emphasis here should be on the phrase ”white man.”after all he is not a minority so therefore does not have the same rights.
Really???
This is the "Clinton get tough on crime" stats?
I guess we are in serious trouble, after all.
Oh, it was a white man, hit and stuck in a windshield, then left to die while the perp, a black women partied and had sex in the next room.
Sorry, no hate crime here, everybody just move along.
Now if somebody could prove that the man was gay, it still might have a chance of being considered a "HATE CRIME".
It will be interesting to see if that aspect, him being white, of the case will come up in the trial.
I suspect that he being homeless had a lot more to do with it than race. IMHO
I'll bet she gets off with an insanity plea. That, added to the fact that her ancestors suffered 400 years of slavery and racism is so pervasive in our society that she could not have acted in any other way, means she will probably get a slap on the wrist and be back on welfare and food stamps within months.
Yeah, I guess that's true. My real point was the above is more true than this case is about race. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure this woman would have sought help if the victim was black? Do you think she would have? Anyone??
I like your screen name, btw. "Leave it to Beave" is an all-time classic, IMHO. . .
We'll know that this has reached the level of a hate crime when Jesse and Al descend on this town like circus barkers. Of course to them the hate crime will be charging this woman with murder.
I think the judge did that....by raising the bail!
Well, if this is true, then it most definitely was a hate crime. The man was alive, stuck in her windshield, and in her garage? Give this b*tch the needle.
It really has nothing to do with clinton. Murder is a state crime. The actual time served I listed was for 1999. The time served in 1990, for murder was 83 months, and for manslaughter was 31 months. We are already getting much tougher on murderers in spite of the terrible overcrowding of our prisons today, with about 2 million americans now incarcerated. When you hear on the news that someone gets "life" for murder, it does not mean "life", it means an average of 8 years.
We must make room in our prisons for people that use drugs!! Our prisons are too full,even after massive prison building, and the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the history of the earth.
The victim's son will be interviewed later in the show. (Your video clip was invaluable in helping sort out some of the confusing details. Shame shame on local police for not shielding the tipster.)
She will walk only if she gets a black jury from urban FW/Dallas. I can't imagine anybody acquitting a murderer such as this, but hey, if OJ got by with it....
Mallard is seeking to be the Democrat Attorney General.
[/sarcasm]
I understand they were laughing and joking about the white man being stuck in her windshield, I think that's just the language they were using.
I think it is probably not really about race, but about a homeless person.
They probably had seen him around the neighborhood and thought that nobody will know if he is gone for a few days and finding a dead homeless person is not really a big deal, I'm sure it happens quite a bit.
I am giving them more credit then they probably deserve, but I think they knew what they were doing and took there chances that a dead homeless guy would go un-noticed and when found just thought he would be scooped up and forgotten.
IMHO
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