FORT WORTH, TX — 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.

She struck him along a highway, then drove home with his body lodged in the windshield.

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."

After parking in the garage, she had sex with her boyfriend, then returned with him to the garage to survey the situation.

"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.

Mallard, a nurse's aide, sobbed and apologized to him several times while he was dying, but didn't respond to his pleas for help.

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.

Her friends dumped the body in a park.

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.

She had planned to burn the car and buy another after getting her income tax refund.

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.

UPDATE:

In September 2002 Herbert Cleveland, 24, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence for helping dispose of Biggs' body. In January 2003 Clete Jackson, 27, indicted on the same charge, also pleaded guilty. Cleveland was sentenced to nine years in prison; Jackson, ten years.

Both agreed to testify against Mallard, who was indicted in April 2002 and ultimately convicted in June 2003, after less than one hour of deliberation by the jury, of both murder and tampering with evidence.

Mallard received a 50-year sentence for the murder charge and a concurrent 10-year sentence for tampering. She had been facing a life sentence. For their sentencing deliberations, the jury took a leisurely 21/2 hours.

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