The Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former nurse’s aide was convicted of murder Thursday for hitting a homeless man with her car and driving home with his mangled body lodged in the windshield.
Jurors deliberated less than two hours in the case of Chante Jawan Mallard, 27, who faces life in prison on the conviction.
The sentencing phase was to start later Thursday. Mallard also faces up to 10 years for tampering with evidence, a charge to which she pleaded guilty earlier this week.
Earlier, defense attorney Jeff Kearney said in closing arguments, “Murder involves an act, not a failure to act.”
Prosecutor Christy Jack countered that Mallard did “so much more than failure to render aid.”
“She pulled over ... and tried to get him off her car and in that moment made a choice,” Jack said. “Her choice to conceal Greg Biggs from anyone who could help him.”
Another prosecutor, Richard Albert, told jurors to use their common sense and think of Biggs when rendering their decision.
“She stole his life,” he said, pointing to Mallard as she set solemnly next to her attorney. “She stole his hope of anyone else saving his life. That’s murder.”
Mallard, a 27-year-old former nurse’s aide, is accused of hitting Biggs on a highway in 2001 as she drove home drunk from a bar and then leaving him in her garage to die, still trapped in the windshield. She faces life in prison if convicted of murder.
During testimony this week, witnesses gave differing accounts of how long Biggs may have lived hanging upside-down in the car’s windshield. They differed on whether he was conscious and able to speak, but agreed that he could have survived he had gotten medical treatment.
The only defense witness was Vincent Di Maio, chief medical examiner for Bexar County, who testified Wednesday that Biggs was knocked unconscious after his head hit the windshield.
“He had to have been knocked out. I can’t see any other way,” Di Maio told jurors. He said Biggs, 37, was likely alive for one or two hours after he was hit.
Police said Mallard told them that after parking in her garage, she sat in the car, crying and apologizing to Biggs as he moaned.
Di Maio, who reviewed the Tarrant County medical examiner’s autopsy report, said Biggs would have had problems breathing because his head was on the floorboard and his torso was lodged between the passenger seat and dashboard.
Biggs’ right arm and leg bones were broken, part of his left leg was nearly amputated, and he had deep cuts in his torso, said Dr. Nizam Peerwani, Tarrant County’s medical examiner.
He testified that Biggs probably died about two hours after he was hit. The injuries would not have prevented him from moving his hands and talking, he said.
“He was obviously in severe, excruciating pain,” Peerwani said. Di Maio and Peerwani both said that despite the injuries, Biggs could have survived with medical treatment because the crash did not cause injuries to his brain or other organs.
Biggs’ body was found Oct. 27, 2001, in a park. Mallard’s former boyfriend, Clete Jackson, and his cousin Herbert Tyrone Cleveland have pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence for helping dump the body there. Jackson was sentenced to 10 years; Cleveland, nine years. As part of the plea bargain, both agreed to testify at Mallard’s trial, but prosecutors never called Cleveland.
Mallard earlier this week pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and faces a sentence of up to 10 years on that charge.