Death of Gregory Glen Biggs

On October 26, 2001, Chante Jawan Mallard struck 37-year-old Gregory Glenn Biggs, a homeless man, with her automobile. The force of the crash lodged Biggs into the windshield. Mallard then drove home, and left the man in her windshield where he lived for a few hours. Mallard was convicted and sentenced to 50 years' imprisonment for her role in his death.

History

Chante Jawan Mallard (born June 22, 1976^[1]) is a woman from Fort Worth, Texas. On October 26, 2001 Mallard's car struck the homeless pedestrian Gregory Glen Biggs; at the time Mallard was believed to have been driving while intoxicated by a combination of marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.^[2] The force of the impact sent Biggs flying through the windshield, lodging him there.

Mallard then drove home, leaving the injured Biggs stuck in her windshield, and parked her car in her garage.

After the accident Mallard did not notify the police nor did she get Biggs any medical attention, even though she was a former nurse's aide.^[3] When Biggs died an unknown number of hours later, still in the windshield of her car in her garage, she called a male friend, Clete Jackson, for assistance. Mallard, Jackson, and Jackson's cousin Herbert Tyrone Cleveland, took the body to a park and left it there, even going so far as to set fire to part of the car in an attempt to disguise the evidence. The three were each convicted on charges of tampering with evidence for this action.^[4]

Mallard became a suspect after she was reported talking and laughing about the incident at a party some four months after the events.^[5] "I hit this white man," Mallard allegedly told acquaintance Maranda Daniel, laughing.^[6] During the trial, Tarrant County medical examiner Nizam Peerwani testified that, had Mallard taken Biggs to a hospital, he would have recovered from his injuries. Other experts testified that they agreed that Biggs would have survived. "There's not a member of the Fort Worth Fire Department that could not have saved Mr. Biggs' life," testified Capt. Jim Sowder.^[7] Mallard was convicted of murder in June 2003, with the 50-year murder sentence and 10-year tampering sentence to run concurrently. She will be eligible for parole in 2027.^[1]

Media adaptions

Mallard's case was later adapted as an episode of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ("Anatomy of a Lye", aired May 2, 2002) and also as an episode of Law & Order ("Darwinian", aired January 7, 2004^[8] – though the driver is allowed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice after an autopsy reveals that the accident was not the cause of the fatal head injury). The story also inspired events in Season 2 of Fargo with Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kieran Culkin.

Films inspired by the events include Stuck (2007, with Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea), Hit and Run (2009, with Laura Breckenridge), and Accident on Hill Road (2009, with Celina Jaitley and Farooque Shaikh.)

See also

• List of unusual deaths

References

External links

• Smoking Gun Arrest Warrant Affidavit of Detective D.E. Owings.