FORT WORTH – A judge on Friday raised bond to $250,000 for a nurse's aide charged with murder after a homeless man she hit died in her garage with his body lodged in her car's windshield.
Chante J. Mallard, 25, had been released on $10,000 bail after she was arrested Wednesday. But at a bond hearing Friday, prosecutors said that amount was too low.
State District Judge James R. Wilson raised the amount and said Ms. Mallard must be under house arrest, wear an electronic monitor, continue counseling, avoid alcohol and undergo drug testing. The judge also imposed a gag order in the case.
Ms. Mallard was charged with murder this week in the slaying of Gregory Glenn Biggs, 37, a former Fort Worth school bus driver whose body was found dumped last October at Cobb Park on Fort Worth's south side.
"It truly is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen," said Fort Worth police Lt. David Burgess, a supervisor in the traffic division. "I don't think there is really any other way to describe this."
"I'm going to have to come up with a new word. 'Indifferent' isn't enough. 'Cruel' isn't enough to say," Tarrant County prosecutor Richard Alpert told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. " 'Heartless'? 'Inhumane'? Maybe we've just redefined inhumanity here."
In late October, Ms. Mallard had been to a club where she had a couple of drinks, police said. She told police she was on her way home about 3 a.m. when she hit a man who was walking along U.S. Highway 287 near the Loop 820 split.
Panicked, she continued the four miles to her home in the 3800 block of Wilbarger Street and hid her Chevy Cavalier inside her garage, police said. The injured man, later identified as Mr. Biggs, was stuck headfirst partially through the passenger side of the windshield and his legs, broken in several places, were folded over the roof, police said.
"He was alive for some period of time, about two to three days," said Sgt. Jon Fahrenthold, head of the accident investigation unit. "Apparently there was some conversation between them. She kept saying she was sorry, and he kept begging for help."
Police said that after Mr. Biggs died, Ms. Mallard and at least one friend then took the body to Cobb Park, a few blocks from her home, and dumped it. The body was found Oct. 27 near the edge of a parking lot.
In an affidavit, Maranda Daniel told police that she had been out with Ms. Mallard and several other women in mid-February when Ms. Mallard "giggled" as she explained how she had hit a man with her car.
Ms. Daniel also told police that Ms. Mallard "was messed up" on the drug "ecstasy" when she hit the man. The affidavit also quoted Ms. Daniel as saying Ms. Mallard told her that after she parked her car in her garage, she went inside her house and had sex with a boyfriend, leaving the injured man entangled in her windshield.
Ms. Mallard also told police that "she does not know how long it took the man to die, [because] she quit going out into the garage," the affidavit states.