Accident victim 'left to die on windscreen'



A WOMAN who hit a homeless man with her car and drove home with him hanging through her shattered windscreen has gone on trial for murder in Texas after she let him bleed to death in her garage.

Chante Mallard (27) has pleaded not guilty at her trial in Fort Worth and said that she apologised to Gregory Biggs (37), a former bricklayer, as he coughed up blood between the front seats of her gold Chevrolet Cavalier.

"All of a sudden, bam, he was just there," she told police. "I was so afraid that I didn't even know what I was doing. I don't even know how I got home. He was on my car and stuck through the right front windshield.

"I parked my car in the garage and I put the door down. I stayed in the car and just cried. I talked to the man and he would respond, but I'm not sure what he said. I told him over and over I didn't mean to do this and that I was so sorry."

Police agree that it was probably an accident that Ms Mallard hit the man on a dimly lit bend on her way home from a club in the early hours. But her failure to seek medical help and her efforts to cover up her role in his death by burning her car seat and dumping his body in a park led them to a charge her with first-degree murder.

Prosecutors said that the former nurse's aide made no attempt, despite her training, to stem the bleeding or to call an ambulance, even though medical attention would almost certainly have saved Mr Biggs's life. She could easily have stopped at fire or police stations as she drove home for almost two miles, they say.