Hit-and-Run Victim Lived 2 Days Stuck in Windshield By AP Staff
FORT WORTH, Texas -- A victim of a hit-and-run lived at least two days trapped in the windshield of the car that struck him, authorities said.
Police told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Thursday's editions that the driver ignored Gregory Glenn Biggs' pleas for help and the victim later died.
"I'm going to have to come up with a new word. Indifferent isn't enough. Cruel isn't enough to say," Richard Alpert, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, told the newspaper. "Heartless? Inhumane? Maybe we've just redefined inhumanity here."
Police on Wednesday arrested Chante Mallard, a 25-year-old nurse's aide, on a murder warrant in Biggs' October death.
When Biggs' body was found in Fort Worth's Cobb Park, evidence pointed to a hit-and-run, investigators said. The newspaper said investigators based their case on her confession about four months later.
"If he had gotten medical attention, he probably would have survived," said traffic investigation Sgt. John Fahrenthold.
Mallard told police she had been drinking and using ecstasy the night she struck the man. The impact hurled him headfirst through the windshield, leaving his broken legs protruding onto the hood.
With the man still lodged in the windshield, the woman panicked and drove a few miles to her Fort Worth home, parked her car in the garage and lowered the door as Biggs, 37, began to plead for help, according to a police statement.
Investigators told the newspaper that Biggs received no aid for the next two or three days and remained lodged in the windshield, bleeding and slowly going into shock. Mallard told police she periodically went into the garage, apologizing to him but doing nothing about his cries for help.
After the Biggs died, police quoted the woman as saying several of the her acquaintances helped remove his body, put it into the trunk of another vehicle and drove to the park, where the body was dumped. The body was found Oct. 27.
Mallard's attorney, Mike Heiskell, said the accusation against her was unwarranted.
"I think this is overreaching on the part of the prosecution and the police and, in the end, I believe the law will shake out that this was simply a case of failure to stop and render aid," he said.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office told police that Biggs suffered no internal injuries and apparently died from loss of blood and shock. Medical examiner's records listed Biggs' address as a homeless shelter in Fort Worth. His mother, Meredith Biggs, said she had recently begun looking for him.
Police last month were tipped that the suspect may have been in a hit-and-run collision, said Fahrenthold. Mallard had told a friend details when she was questioned why she was no longer driving her car.
A search warrant of Mallard's house produced the damaged car with blood, hair and other evidence, authorities said.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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