Hee, Hee! "I hit this white man."
Johnny Bravo
Saturday, March 09, 2002
FOXNEWS
FORT WORTH, Texas - The woman accused of leaving a hit-and-run victim to
bleed to death in the windshield of her car was sitting in jail Saturday
after a judge raised her bond to $250,000.
State District Judge James R. Wilson on Friday said even if Chante Mallard
posts bail, she must be under house arrest, wear an electronic monitor,
continue counseling, avoid alcohol and undergo drug testing.
Mallard, 25, who had been released on $10,000 bail after her arrest
Wednesday, cried in the courtroom and was taken into custody after the
hearing Friday. She remained in the Tarrant County Jail Saturday.
Prosecutors had said the previous bond was too low.
The District Attorney's office in Fort Worth, citing a gag order, would not
respond to questions Friday about whether the issue of race would be entered
into its prosecution of the case.
Mallard was charged with murder for plowing into Greg Glenn Biggs, 37, with
her car Oct. 26 and leaving him to die from shock and blood loss over the
course of two days.
According to a police report filed against her Mallard giggled several
months later as she told friends, "I hit this white man."
"We intend to prosecute this fully," said Tarrant County assistant district
attorney Richard Alpert.
The police report says Mallard checked on Biggs several times as he was
dying in her garage, but ignored his pleas for help. After the mentally ill,
homeless man died, Mallard's boyfriend and his brother dumped the body,
according to police reports.
Authorities say they got several new details from a tipster on Feb. 25,
leading to Mallard's arrest on Wednesday, including an account that she
parked the car with the wounded man stuck in the glass, went inside and had
sex with her boyfriend, then returned with him to the garage to survey the
situation.
Mallard, who is black, told friends at a mid-February get-together that she
wasn't allowed to drive because of the accident, according to the affidavit
filed by Ft. Worth Detective D.E. Owings. The information came during an
interview with tipster Maranda Daniel, who was at the gathering.
"Shantae (sic) stated that . she hit this white man with her car. Maranda
advised that Shantae giggled when she said 'I hit this white man,'" reads
the affidavit, which has been posted on The Smoking Gun Web site.
On Thursday, Mallard's lawyer spoke with reporters, characterizing his
client - who worked as a nurse's aide - as scared, not villainous.
"She is not the monster that police and prosecutors are making her out to
be," said her attorney, Mike Heiskell. "She was simply a frightened,
emotionally distraught young woman who had an accident, panicked and made a
wrong choice."
Heiskell said his client is only guilty of failing to stop and render aid -
not murder.
Mallard's parents and one of her older brothers testified on her behalf at
Friday's hearing. They described her as a Girl Scout who cared for babies at
her church and took nursing classes in college.
But when questioned by prosecutors, her relatives acknowledged they did not
know her boyfriend or her friends and had not been to her house in months.
Mallard told authorities she was "messed up" on ecstasy and alcohol when she
crashed her car into Biggs along a Ft. Worth highway near her house,
according to the affidavit, and that after she struck the man, she got
scared and continued driving home.
Once there, police say, she parked the car in the garage with Biggs still
bleeding and lodged in the windshield, his body halfway in the passenger
side of the car. After having sex with her boyfriend, she returned with him
to the car.
"The man wasn't dead yet, but he was dying," the affidavit states. "Shantae
stated that the man was asking them to help him, but that they just walked
back inside."
Defense attorney Heiskell said the victim died a few hours after Mallard
drove home and was in her garage no more than 24 hours. Mallard's friends
advised her not to call for help and suggested dumping the body, he said.
The affidavit states Mallard sobbed and apologized to Biggs several times
while he was moaning and dying, but didn't call authorities.
"She sat there and cried and kept telling the white male that was sticking
through her windshield that she was sorry," the report says. "She said that
the man would respond to her, but she could not hear what he was saying .
She was lying on the kitchen floor and crying . Chante kept going in and out
of the garage telling the man she was sorry."
Some residents in the east Fort Worth neighborhood said they never suspected
anything was wrong. Sherry Orr said Mallard, her neighbor, never mentioned
the incident.
Biggs' legs were broken and he suffered cuts, but he had no internal
injuries that would have caused his death, according to the medical
examiner's office.
If convicted, Mallard faces a sentence ranging from five years to life in
prison.
"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," said Fort Worth police Lt. David Burgess.
Biggs 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, but he also had a 19-year-old
son who only recently found out about the tragic death, relatives said.
Brandon Glenn Biggs has questions for Mallard, but says 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 in a telephone interview from his
home in Albany, about 35 miles northeast of Abilene.
Biggs' body was found in a park Oct. 27. Authorities suspected he had been
hit by a car, but they had no leads until tipster Daniel came forward last
week.
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.
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, which states she planned to burn the car and buy another one
after receiving her income tax refund.
Charges may be filed against those who dumped Biggs' body, Burgess said.
Fox News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to
this report.
Jobs at Fox News Channel
Terms of use. Privacy Statement. For FoxNews.com comments write to
foxnew...@foxnews.com; For Fox News Channel comments write to
comm...@foxnews.com
For the latest in sports news, visit www.foxsports.com.
©Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2002 Standard & Poor's