Left to Die: The Chante Mallard Case and the Man in Her Windshield

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October 26, 2001, Fort Worth, Texas. A certified nursing assistant leaves a nightclub on ecstasy.

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She's drunk and she's stoned. She hits a homeless man on highway 287. He goes through

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her windshield. Instead of calling 911, she drives home with him still alive and still

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lodged in her car windshield. Then she parks in her garage and closes the door. What happens

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next will make you question everything you know about the choices people make when they're

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afraid.

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There are crime cases where you hear the facts and your brain tries to reject them because

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they sound too horrible to be real. This is one of those stories and the truly disturbing

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part is how ordinary it starts. October 26, 2001, around 2.30 in the morning.

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Chante Mallard leaves a Fort Worth nightclub called Joe's Big Bamboo Club. For the record,

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I don't own this club. But she's 25 years old. She works as a certified nursing assistant

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at a retirement home and she's completely wasted. We're talking drunk on multiple drinks

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that she's had. She smoked weed in the car on the way to the club and she was rolling

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an ecstasy that she split with her friend before they even walked inside the club. Her

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friend can see Mallard is messed up so she drives them both to her own apartment. That's

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the responsible move, the safe move, the move that saves lives. But Mallard makes a different

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decision. She then gets behind the wheel of her 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier and decides to

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drive herself home.

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Now let me tell you about Gregory Glenn Biggs. He's 37, a skilled bricklayer who fell on

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hard times after losing his truck a couple years back. For tradesmen, losing your vehicle

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means losing your livelihood. He's been staying at a Fort Worth homeless shelter but he has

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a son named Brandon who loves him. He's a dad, a craftsman who builds things with his

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hands and knew the value of precision. That night Gregory was walking along Highway 287.

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It's dark on that stretch where loop 820 curves into US 287 and Mallard comes around that

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bend. Her vision is blurred from the ecstasy. Her reaction time is destroyed from the alcohol

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and suddenly Gregory Biggs is right there in front of her car. She hits him at highway

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speed. The physics of what happens are specific. The bumper strikes his legs and nearly

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severs his left leg completely. His body rotates up onto the hood. Then his head and torso

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go through the passenger side windshield. He doesn't get thrown onto the road or run

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over. He goes through the safety glass and becomes lodged in the windshield. His head

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and upper body end up inside the car. Resting on the floorboard and passenger seat. His

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legs are outside, draped over the hood in positions that don't look possible. It's at this

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point that it stops being a horrible accident. Mallard doesn't stop. She doesn't pull over.

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She drives about one mile to her house with Gregory Biggs embedded in her windshield,

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still alive and bleeding. She pulls into her garage and closes the door behind her.

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The medical examiner later testified about what those injuries meant. Near amputation

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of the leg, multiple fractures, internal trauma. Calls of death was bleeding out and going

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into shock. But here's what matters. The medical examiner estimated Gregory survived one

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to two hours after the impact. If Mallard had called 911 when she got home even, even 30

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minutes after she parked, paramedics could have applied turnipits and started fluid resuscitation.

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They could have gotten him to surgery. He had a window where he could have lived. His

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death wasn't guaranteed by the collision. It became inevitable because of what happened

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in that garage. Mallard sat in the car with him. She heard him moaning. She heard him calling

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out and she cried. She apologized over and over. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She tried to pull

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him out herself but she couldn't get him unstuck from the windshield. So she sat there

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with this dying man. A man she had actual medical training to help as a nursing assistant

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and she watched the clock run out on his life. Then she went inside her house and left him

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to die alone. By morning Gregory Biggs was dead. Mallard borrowed a different car and picked

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up her ex-boyfriend, Cleet Jackson, who'd gotten out of jail a few months earlier for burglary.

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When he arrived at her house and saw what was in the garage, he later described the body

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as "grotesquely lodged in the windshield with a severed leg resting on the center console."

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They drove to her friend's apartment to try to figure out a plan. They were talking about

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burning the car with the body inside to destroy DNA. Jackson drew a line there. He said,

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"We ain't going to burn the body. We're going to put him somewhere so his family can find

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him so they can bury him because it was an accident."

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There's the strange morality at work here. They were willing to hide a corpse and destroy

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evidence, but cremating a body was somehow too far. That night Jackson brought his cousin

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to help. They spread a blanket on the garage floor and forcefully pulled Gregory out of

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the windshield. Jackson testified later that he apologized to the corpse while they

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worked. They loaded the body into a trunk and drove the cob park and fort worth and left

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him where he would be discovered. Then they removed the blood soaked passenger seat from

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the Cavalier and burned it and mallards back yard.

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October 27th, Gregory's body was found in the park. The autopsy showed injuries from a high-speed

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impact, but there was no glass at the scene and no skid marks nearby. Police knew someone

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had moved him. They had a victim but no vehicle, no suspect and no leads. Four months passed.

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Then in February 2002, mallard goes to a party and she starts talking. She tells someone

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named Marla O'Donnell that she hit a white man with her car. Whether this was guilt or

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some weird form of bragging, we don't know. But O'Donnell went to the police. When detectives

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executed a search warrant on Mallard's house, they found the Cavalier sitting in her garage

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with the shattered windshield and the missing passenger seat. They found the charred seat

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frame in the backyard. Blood and hair inside the car matched Gregory's DNA. The trial started

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June 2003, Mallard pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence but not guilty to murder. The

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prosecution had to prove intent when the initial impact was accidental. They used felony murder

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doctrine. Mallard committed a felony by failing to stop and render aid. While committing that

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felony, she did something obviously dangerous to human life by hiding Gregory in the garage

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and denying him medical care. The prosecutor said in his closing arguments, quote, "A man

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is laying in her car, moaning and bleeding and she needs someone to tell her what to do.

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Any decent person would call for help." The defense tried to paint Mallard as a terrified

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young woman who panicked while high in drunk. They argued the drugs prevented rational thought.

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But Cleet Jackson's testimony was too detailed and too disturbing to dismiss. He described

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the smell, the positioning of the body, and Mallard's hysteria in the garage. The jury

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deliberated for less than one hour. Guilty of murder. She was sentenced to 50 years.

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Mallard, of course, appealed, arguing that you can't be held criminally liable for failing to act.

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The appeals court said Texas law requires drivers and accidents to stop, render aid, and contact

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authorities. Her failure to do that, combined with driving home and hiding the car, made her guilty.

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They also ruled that even if the crash injuries were severe, withholding medical care was a major

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factor causing Gregory to die when and how he did. This case disturbed people because we understand

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accidents and we understand panic. But sitting in a garage with a dying human being and choosing

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your own freedom over their life is something else entirely. Mallard wasn't born a monster.

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She was a nursing assistant who liked going out and like dancing. But high on drugs and paralyzed

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by fear of prison, she made a choice that turned a tragic accident into one of the cruelest murders

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in Texas criminal history. Chante Mallard is now 49 years old and incarcerated at the Marie

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units in Gatesville, Texas. She becomes eligible for parole on March 4, 2027. In two years, the parole

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board will decide if 25 years is enough payment for what she did. Gregory Biggs never got to see a

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son brand and get married. Never met grandchildren. Never got to share the moments that his son testified

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about missing. Brandon said the hardest part is knowing all the life milestones his father should have

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been there for. The distance between a tragic accident and murder was less than one mile of road

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and two hours of time. Gregory Biggs died because Chante Mallard was more afraid of what might

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happen to her than she was capable of saving a stranger's life. She had the training, she had the time,

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she had a phone, all she needed was the courage to make one call. She chose silence instead,

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and a man bled to death in the dark while she cried in her house and hoped the problem would disappear.

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Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder,

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Benjamin True Crime Stories. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and let's get to an email, subject

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hardest part. Joe, what's the hardest part of doing a true crime podcast for you?

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Beth in Appleton, Wisconsin, and I'll tell you Beth, to be frank, I'd have to change my name,

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but it's knowing that what I'm reading about when I'm researching and telling these stories about

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it's the worst moment, the worst time, and all of these people's lives. And I'm speaking about

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the victims and the victims' families here. Because sometimes these psychopath killers, they don't

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feel remorse, they don't, they don't even care that they've done these things. So I'm not, I'm not

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talking about them, but the families and these victims, this is the worst thing ever in their

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life, and they've got to live with this forever. And I'm reading about this day in and day out,

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and that kind of weighs on me. I am what you would consider an empath, and I feel things a little

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differently than some other people do, which is ironic because I do a true crime podcast, and that's

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the opposite of what I should be doing when I have these big feelings. But here we are. Which also,

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by the way, is the same reason that I am against the death penalty. I've talked about that in the past

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of this podcast. I'm not going to go into it again right now, maybe again in the later episodes,

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I might talk about it again, my stance on the death penalty, but I'm anti. But that's the hardest part

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of doing this podcast for me is knowing that this, the situations that I'm discussing these stories

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are the worst moment some people ever have, and their families just never recover. And I'm reading

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about it day in and day out. Beth, thank you again for the email and have some cheese for me.

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Hey, if you're a new listener to the podcast, welcome. Make sure you go back and listen to the

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back episodes of this podcast, and subscribe wherever you're listening right now. You can also go

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to 10minutemurder.com. Contact me like Beth did. Also, sign up for the newsletter, read the blog,

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all kinds of things. Links, galore in there on 10minutemurder.com. I think I just said murder like old

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timey peepit moida, 10 minute moida. Sound like a 1930s gangster. All of you OG listeners,

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I really appreciate you listening. I appreciate your dedication to this podcast and sharing it with

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your friends and your family. All right, that's going to do it. That is your episode for today.

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Thank you again for listening to 10minute murder. See you next time.

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