Original subtitles

[tense music]

KELLY SIEGLER: Late one night in October 2001,

a Fort Worth man named Gregory Biggs was walking down

the freeway when he is suddenly struck by a passing car.

- [tire screeching] - [glass shattering]

His body goes through the windshield,

and he becomes stuck half in and half out of the car,

still alive, with his torso angled down

into the front passenger seat.

[tires screeching]

But the driver, who is a nurse named Chante Mallard,

does not stop and does not call 911,

doesn't assist in any way

despite the fact that she had medical training.

[dramatic music]

And what she does do next is very shocking,

and makes you think,

"Is this just an accident or is it murder?"

♪♪♪

[theme music]

[ominous music]

[phone line beeps]

[phone ringing]

MIKE CARROLL: I was in the office.

I was working that weekend,

and I received a deceased body found in Cobb Park

on the east side of Fort Worth.

A lot of older African Americans kind of hang around that area.

They'll cook, they'll play games,

but also a lot of people drive through Cobb Park

and they use drugs there.

STEPHANIE PHILLIPS: I'd spend hours in Cobb Park.

It had a really bad reputation at that time.

We got calls to Cobb Park daily.

I would say at least once every shift.

CARROLL: So when I drive through the park,

I can clearly see a body of a white male.

When I examined the body,

I was looking for any type of damage.

Like, was he shot? Was he stabbed?

Was he struck by an instrument?

And you didn't see those type of injuries on his body.

Not to his chest, his face. You didn't see that.

What you saw was the leg was very badly contorted.

His left foot was laying across his stomach,

it was broken so badly.

The way rigor mortis was set in,

his arm and his hand was twisted in an odd position.

So he'd been dead for a few hours.

I also noticed that he was covered in shards of glass.

Next to his body, I could see some very entrenched tire marks.

It looks like he may have been hit or struck by a vehicle.

So he's been in the park.

I'm assuming he was there at night.

Someone ran him over and just left him there.

It's very possible he could've been a homeless person

in the park sleeping when he was struck by a car.

It looks like an accident,

or something that a traffic investigation unit would work.

Not us. Not homicide.

Under Texas law, the typical charge for a hit and run

is FSRA, which is "failure to stop and render aid."

In 2001, FSRA was punishable as a second-degree felony

with anything from two years' probation

to ten years in prison when a death was involved.

CARROLL: So at that point, I called traffic investigation

and said, "Hey, I've got an incident here that looks like

"it's probably gonna be a hit and run

"or failure to stop and render aid."

So a traffic investigation unit made the scene.

♪♪♪

Any time you have a death, the first thing you have to do

is figure out who your victim is.

He did have ID.

The victim was Gregory Biggs.

They learned that he grew up in Duncanville,

which is a small town east of Fort Worth,

and married his high school sweetheart.

At the time of Greg's death,

he was divorced, which, under Texas law,

makes his 17-year-old son Brandon Biggs his next of kin.

The police also learned that Gregory,

who suffers from some mental health issues,

had been living at a homeless shelter

at the time of his death.

STEVEN PHIPPS: My sister called.

She goes, "Hey, you was real good friends with Greg Biggs."

And I was like, "Yeah." She goes, "Well,

"on the news tonight, there's a story, and I think he's dead."

And I'm like, "What?"

Then I watched the news.

Yeah, and it was him.

There was following news reports, you know, I guess.

I remember seeing, you know, that he'd had

mental issues and was homeless.

I didn't see any of that in high school.

But I guess-- From what I understand,

bipolar and stuff comes-- can come in later in life,

And, um, you know, other than just the shock at the moment,

I start, you know, questioning myself.

You know, how did I lose touch with him?

How did I not work harder to find him?

Met Greg Biggs back in 1979, back in high school.

And we hit it right off.

It was just one of those things, you know, we--

like we'd known each other all our lives.

He would make friends with everybody and anybody,

anywhere, anytime.

I mean, it may sound cliché or cheesy,

but he would give you the shirt off his back.

♪♪♪

CARROLL: When you have a case like this,

the autopsy is extremely crucial

in terms of looking for evidence.

The medical examiner can tell by the autopsy

the way the body was damaged.

Gregory Biggs had broken legs, broken ankle.

He has a real major laceration across his lower abdomen,

and there's scratches on the body.

And extremely important, because they can see lividity

on the shoulders and the front part of his body.

Lividity is a post-mortem phenomenon that occurs

in the body when the blood pools after the heart stops pumping.

And so because of the lividity,

we know that he was laying in a different position when he died,

and he had to have been moved from that location

to another position at the park.

SIEGLER: With evidence of Greg's body being moved,

this is no longer a traffic accident.

This has become a murder investigation.

[solemn music]

REPORTER: In Dallas today, family members gathered

to remember 37-year-old Gregory Biggs.

MELODY MCDONALD LANIER: Within a few days after Gregory Biggs

is found dead in the park,

his son has the very, very sad task

of arranging for his father's funeral.

And it was just attended by his son and a few others.

I think it's good, really, to make my dad known more as, um--

as not just a homeless man, you know?

'Cause he wasn't always that way.

PHIPPS: Greg was a solid, loyal friend.

Sweet and simple. Nothing complicated.

You knew where you stood with him.

♪♪♪

CARROLL: So we pretty much know what we're looking for.

Based on the injuries to the victim,

there's gonna be significant damage to the vehicle.

So now you're looking at who fixes cars,

anyone who's towed a vehicle,

anyone that's seen a vehicle that has damage.

So we put that out to the media, offered a reward.

But three or four months into the investigation,

we were just stuck with no suspects,

and we had no real direction.

And then we received a tip.

[phone line ringing]

RICHARD ALPERT: What was unique about the case when we got it

is that typically we get a case and the police have finished

their investigation and they just give us a final product.

We got involved on the ground floor on this one.

So we were actively involved in the initial investigation.

I can't think of another case that I've ever dealt with

that has had this level of... just absurdity.

[tense music]

This woman who called into the police, she'd been at a party

and heard this woman she identified as Chante Mallard

tell the story about being at the club months earlier.

She was drinking some at the bar.

She had half of an ecstasy pill.

And when she drove home...

she's hit some white guy with her car.

- [tires screeching] - [glass shattering]

CHRISTY JACK: It sounded crazy.

We were getting information that four months later,

the car could still be in Chante Mallard's garage.

Technically, if you receive information

like what we received in the 911 call,

you could issue an arrest warrant for Chante Mallard.

But Richard is a prosecutor's prosecutor

and incredibly thorough, and so we decide,

"Let's write a search warrant. Let's see.

"Is this car in fact still there?"

[sirens wailing]

Police department goes to Chante Mallard's house

with a search warrant.

And there, they get way more than they bargained for.

♪♪♪

She said, "I didn't mean to hit him."

I was shocked.

Blood is still in the visor.

Hair is still in the headliner of the car.

She, in essence, hid him from anyone else

who could render medical attention.

LAWYER: What did you see?

The back side of a body, lodged out of the window.

It was the darkest night of Gregory's life.

♪♪♪

The dispatchers put out a request for assistance

for the detectives to run a search warrant on a female,

Chante Mallard.

And Chante answered the door.

Normally, when somebody shows up

at your house with a search warrant,

they wanna know why you're searching, why you're there.

She obviously knew it was coming because she didn't say anything.

We directed her to the living room,

and then they began their search.

♪♪♪

Immediately, I saw the vehicle in the garage.

What was left of it.

Huge hole in the windshield,

and what looked like dried blood

where his body had hit the windshield.

Here we are, four months later, and the car is still there.

And hair and blood is still in the headliner.

There were still ties to the crime in her possession.

♪♪♪

Chante had her head down, and out of nowhere, said,

"I didn't mean to hit him."

I was shocked.

So on her own,

not in response to any police officer questioning,

Chante Mallard comes out with this admission

that she is the person who hit Greg Biggs.

I wasn't expecting that.

We handcuffed her and we took her to the station.

♪♪♪

SIEGLER: Once Chante Mallard starts being interviewed

down at the station, she comes out with this version

of what happened that night,

and it is a story unlike anything I've ever heard before.

LANIER: Chante Mallard tells them

that she had gone to a club that night.

She says that she'd only had two drinks and no drugs.

She also tells police she believes that

someone slipped something into her drink.

Because when the club closed that night,

she was feeling really loose and a little wobbly.

And that on the way home, on the freeway,

she had struck a man.

- [tires screeching] - [glass shattering]

Chante described it, "He was in my car

"and just stuck in the right passenger windshield.

She panicked, and she did not know what to do,

and that she drove home

with him still impaled into the windshield.

And she pulls into the garage and puts the door down.

♪♪♪

She tells police that she was apologizing to him profusely

in the garage, and at one point, he responded.

Like, groaned or something in some way.

So her statement indicates that he was alive at the time.

SIEGLER: Chante told the police that after all that,

she went into her house and just sat on the kitchen floor

and cried, claimed that she did not know

how long the man lived for.

LANIER: And then Chante tells police that she called

an on-again, off-again love interest named Vaughn,

and that he got rid of the body.

She said that he took care of it.

She really deflects all blame on this unknown person named Vaughn

that takes care of the body.

And she has no idea what happens to the body.

CARROLL: I think we expected that this is gonna be someone

who was intoxicated, hit somebody on a freeway,

and just failed to stop, but it evolved in such a way

that it was unthinkable and unspeakable.

Police draft an arrest warrant, and she's arrested.

♪♪♪

The next morning, Richard and I went to look at the vehicle

in the Fort Worth Police Pound.

And inside of the door well, there is a fingerprint in blood.

And when we test that blood, it comes back to be Greg Biggs,

which shows he was alive and able to exert enough force

or enough pressure to make a fingerprint.

Our theory was he was pulling himself out of the windshield.

He's struggling to live.

And every breath he took had to be so painful.

♪♪♪

[intriguing music]

We took the time to travel that road that she traveled down.

We literally counted all the places

that can provide emergency care,

all the phone booths that were there.

Also, we came to find out that

Chante worked in a number of different medical facilities

as a certified nurse's assistant.

Chante Mallard knows how to take steps to get him help,

and they chose not to do so.

JACK: When she drove him home into her garage

and closed the door, she, in essence, hid him

from anyone else who could render medical attention,

who could save his life.

SIEGLER: If she had hit him and then immediately stopped

and tried to help him, she probably would've been

looking at a charge of intoxication manslaughter,

and because she was a first offender,

she probably would've seriously been looking at probation.

JACK: She's originally arrested for failing to stop

and render aid, and we knew that at a minimum, she had done that.

But in Texas, we have what's called felony murder.

And that is, if you commit one felony

and you just simply do another act

that results in someone's death,

that is also murder here in Texas.

ALPERT: The risk of raising the charge to felony murder

on this case is we go all in on the higher charge,

and by seeking more than we had to begin with,

we might end up with nothing.

So Chante, in her statement she gave to the police,

is mentioning somebody named Vaughn,

someone who was actually involved

in the crime of disposing of the body.

But we could not find a Vaughn

or could not find anyone that even knew a Vaughn.

Even people that purport to be her friends

don't have any idea who this person is.

The fact that they can't find any more information about him,

you know, it's suspicious.

I mean, is Vaughn even a real person?

In Texas, all felonies, as a general rule,

are presented to a grand jury,

and so I used the grand jury as an investigative body.

We brought in multiple possible witnesses.

One of those people was her best friend Titilisee Fry.

JACK: We bring her friend T in front of the grand jury

in the hopes of finding out what happened in the missing hours

between Chante hitting Greg Biggs

and Greg Biggs' body being found in Cobb Park.

So T testifies in front of the grand jury that Chante shows up

at her house the next morning after hitting Greg Biggs.

And there's no description of seeing Chante the night before.

We believe she knows more than what she's saying,

and we subpoena her cell phone records,

and we find all these different phone calls

that tell a very different story.

We know she was talking to Chante Mallard that night.

And it's just a matter of finding where she's vulnerable,

what will finally make her tell us the truth.

JACK: We bring T in front of the grand jury in the hopes

of finding out what happened in the missing hours

before Greg Biggs' body being found in Cobb Park.

ALPERT: I told T, "If you don't tell me the truth,

"you could be subject to being charged with perjury,

"and that's a felony in the state of Texas.

And I think at a certain point, T realizes that,

"If I continue down this road,

"all I'm gonna get out of this is an indictment,

"or I can turn around and cooperate,

"and the DA's office has told me they'll give me immunity."

And at the end of the day,

T gave us the real story of what happened.

T describes how Chante gets off of work

and she comes over to T's apartment,

and then they get dressed and they go to Joe's Big Bamboo.

T said they had two or three drinks,

and they closed the bar down.

Chante decides she's fine to drive, and she goes home.

And after Chante is back at home,

around 3:00 a.m. in the morning,

and Chante calls her. She whispers, "Come pick me up."

T comes over to Chante's house, and our best estimate

is that it's around 3:30 a.m. in the morning,

and so still pretty shortly after hitting Greg Biggs.

I mean, for all we know, Greg Biggs could still

have been alive in the garage.

ALPERT: And when T came to pick up Chante,

Chante ran outside, didn't let her in the house.

She just got in the car and said "Drive."

And so they went off and drove,

and she was talking to her about what had happened.

And it wasn't until hours later

that she brought her back to the house,

and by the time T is back at the house,

Gregory Biggs had died.

I fully believe that Chante made a very concerted effort

to not give T an opportunity to know exactly what had happened.

She did not wanna give her a chance to see

that Gregory Biggs could still be alive.

And T says, "I tell Chante, 'Call 911.'"

And Chante refuses to do that.

ALPERT: At the time of the indictment, what we lacked was

the complete story about disposing of the body.

We still have to nail down the individuals that helped Chante.

So Chante, in her statement she gave to the police,

is mentioning somebody named Vaughn.

But we could not find a Vaughn,

or could not find anyone that even knew a Vaughn.

We eventually find Vaughn when a woman contacts

the police department and gives them an anonymous tip.

Vaughn is a person named Clete Jackson.

The DA investigators go and interview Clete Jackson.

He tells investigators that he helped Chante

with moving Greg Biggs' body.

And he says he had got help from his cousin,

Herbert Tyrone Cleveland.

Both these people have criminal histories,

and that gives us leverage, because they're both facing

not just a little bit of time, but a lot of time.

They came in with attorneys, we laid out,

"You can tell us the truth, testify in our trial,

"and you will get a lower range of punishment."

LANIER: They struck deals with the prosecution.

They were charged with tampering with physical evidence.

They'd received nine and ten years in prison

in exchange for their testimony.

Unlike T, Clete Jackson and Tyrone Cleveland

actually helped dispose of Greg Biggs' body.

And the prosecutors are seen as letting them off too easy.

This can weaken their case

against Chante Mallard in the eyes of the jury.

ALPERT: We knew the reputation of Chante Mallard's attorneys.

That was gonna be the first card that was gonna be played,

is these people got a sweet deal

to make up lies about our client.

It was important to us the jury look at the deal and say,

ten years in prison does not seem like a sweet deal.

SIEGLER: I remember when all of this started.

Richard and Christy Jack were the stars

of the Tarrant County DA's office,

so we all knew each other.

And then this crazy case happened,

with this crazy scenario.

Publicity got bigger and bigger.

And it probably was Christy and Richard's

once-in-a-lifetime case.

And we all know that that's the kind of case

that can make your career or break your career.

As the trial approaches,

the media attention got bigger and bigger.

And at some point, the judge decided to allow

cameras in the courtroom.

So the pressure of that also brought on

all the lawyers involved had to have been huge.

LANIER: It wasn't a local story.

It wasn't a regional story.

It wasn't a state story.

It was a national and international story.

It exploded, because it was such a crazy story.

[dramatic music]

The courtroom was packed.

I remember almost tripping over one of the news truck's cords

as I was walking in that morning.

On day one of the trial,

when Chante Mallard pled not guilty to felony murder,

but guilty to FSRA,

which is Failure to Stop and Render Aid,

it would seem like, to a jury, she's taking full responsibility

for the one crime, FSRA,

while maintaining her innocence to guilt.

And I thought that was a pretty good strategic decision

on the part of her lawyers.

[low, dramatic music]

I want to tell you about a set of facts about a crime.

Almost the perfect crime.

I truly believe that juries form opinions

at the very beginning of trials.

And I want the jury to understand

all of the decisions that she made before she ever got home.

All the places that she passes.

All the places where she could stop,

and she doesn't, and she goes home.

And when she gets home,

she does call for help,

but the help isn't for Greg Biggs.

The help is for her.

And T says when Chante calls her,

she whispers, "Come pick me up."

She whispered because she didn't want Greg Biggs to hear her.

That just tells me,

Greg Biggs is still very much alive in her garage.

[tense music]

♪♪♪

Within an hour and a half to two hours of this accident,

Gregory Biggs was dead.

And the state tells you that that amounts to murder.

I'm telling you that's not murder.

Jeff and Reagan's defense is, this is an overreach.

This isn't murder.

This is only failing to stop and render aid.

This is a young lady who simply panicked.

She got scared.

She was under the influence of something

that she'd never taken before in her life.

She didn't know what to do.

The main thing we're trying to demonstrate

is that the injuries that were sustained

were not going to be fatal.

That they could have been treated.

He does not have injury patterns

that are consistent with instantaneous death.

The other injuries will lead to death

if not medically attended, but will take time to occur.

He very firmly believed the cause of death

was directly related to leaving Gregory Biggs

in her garage.

Richard and I, and Miles Bursette,

who was the third prosecutor on the case,

are very visual when we present cases to the jury.

This was incredibly important in this case,

and it was Miles' idea to bring the car into the courtroom.

They told me that they had this way they figured out

to bring the vehicle into the courtroom.

It was brilliant. It was absolutely wonderful.

It has to be taken apart to fit into the courtroom.

So they have to bring it in and put it together,

so that we can show the jury that fits with our story.

I'm familiar with bringing physical evidence

into the courtroom,

and Richard and Christy and I were all taught

from the very beginning to try and do whatever you can

to make the crime come alive to the jury.

So the more you can do that with the actual evidence,

the more you can make the jury appreciate

what it's like to have been there,

that had to be hugely helpful.

I think showing how close the driver's seat was

to the passenger's seat

really brought home in a very palpable way

how close she was to this man that she just let die.

♪♪♪

LANIER: So the physical evidence is presented to the jury.

It's very compelling.

But next up, her friends are gonna take the stand.

We know it's a risk to bring her friends to the stand.

LANIER: We're all wondering, what are they gonna say?

Is their testimony gonna paint her

to be a compassionate person?

Or they're gonna put the nail in the coffin.

♪♪♪

- What do your friends call you? - T.

On October 25, 2001,

did you have some plans to go out with Chante?

Yes, I did.

T describes how Chante gets off of work,

and she comes over to T's apartment.

And it's probably 10:30 by then.

T: We'd had a drink.

What else did you do?

We split an X pill.

ALPERT: You talking about ecstasy?

T: Yes.

And we smoked a joint.

And they go to Joe's Big Bamboo.

ALPERT: What kind of place is that?

It's an adult nightclub.

And they close the bar down.

Then they leave, and T testifies

that Chante is too intoxicated to drive.

- ALPERT: So who drove? - I did.

ALPERT: What happened when you got to your place?

T: I offered to follow Chante home,

and she said she didn't need me to.

And then she gives us the phone call after Chante

has hit Greg Biggs,

when she gives the words, "Come pick me up."

Like, as if a whisper.

T: Yes.

When she called T to come to her house that night,

Chante did a good job of keeping T away

from the body as long as possible.

But she does, at some point,

get a chance to go in the garage, and see the body.

T: I saw the backside of a body lodged out of the window.

And when she's talking about it,

to my eyes, it's still visibly affecting her.

Because it's shocking.

It's shocking to see a body like that.

And did she call 911?

No.

During the trial, I make a habit of looking at the defendant.

I like to see their reaction.

I noticed there were less tears when T was testifying,

and more anger at the times I did glance over there.

She was angry. She'd been betrayed.

[tense music]

And so then T goes home,

and Chante calls Clete to help get rid of the evidence,

to transport the body to Cobb Park.

[reporter] With bloodshot eyes, Chante Mallard

listened to hours of testimony,

the last of which came from her former boyfriend.

Clete was challenging, because Clete did not like me.

You could tell there was a body in the car.

- Were you upset? - Yeah.

I just got out of prison.

I just got my life right to be a father to my kids.

ALPERT: So you thought she just got you in trouble.

I knew she got me in trouble.

ALPERT: So you have him on the blanket,

and what do you do with the blanket?

Tie it up.

ALPERT: And then what'd you do?

Kind-- Kind of, like, apologize, sort of, to him.

Here you have this hardened criminal,

and you see this single little tear

where he says he apologized to Greg Biggs.

Clete Jackson, to me, was a very compelling witness.

You knew he didn't want to be there.

You knew that what he was saying was the truth,

and that it pained him.

♪♪♪

I think Chante was trying to divest herself

of all of the decisions after hitting Greg Biggs,

but Chante was the one that decided

they needed to get rid of the body.

In fact, there was discussion about burning Greg Biggs' body

in the car, and Clete Jackson was the one

who had the decency to say no.

We just wanted to put him somewhere where his family

can find him, so they can bury him,

because it was an accident.

SIEGLER: Her friends didn't want to be there.

They didn't want to testify.

They weren't on the prosecutor's side,

but they still told the truth.

That's just so beautifully credible.

It was a great help to the case.

ALPERT: Did you decide to call somebody?

Tyrone, my cousin.

ALPERT: And what happened when you got to the park?

We took him out of the car. Tyrone and I.

ALPERT:

JACKSON: Cut it off.

ALPERT: And who gave you the knife to cut it off with?

Chante gave it to Tyrone.

He handed it to me.

[tense music]

Clete helped our narrative by just demonstrating

that Chante was actively involved

in the disposal of the body.

This is very harmful to the defense,

because it establishes one more time how much Chante

was trying to hide what she did in a very cold-blooded manner.

In her first interview with police,

Chante Mallard talked about how other people are responsible

for moving Greg Bigg's body.

But Clete Jackson then comes in and explains, no, no, no.

She was right there with us.

She was part and parcel dumping the body in Cobb Park.

Chante talks about driving into her garage,

and shutting the door.

This is way after that.

So putting these friends on the stand,

and dragging out of them that she's still orchestrating this,

she's still trying to make sure she doesn't get caught

is a huge part of the case.

♪♪♪

Since Clete and I did not get along,

I was concerned that Clete was going to say things

that I'd never heard before when he's being cross-examined.

I was worried he could turn on us at any minute.

♪♪♪

[dramatic music]

KEARNEY: When Chante arrived at Joe's Big Bamboo Club,

and when you first saw her there,

you immediately noticed that she looked different?

Yes, sir.

KEARNEY: And by different, you mean that she looked like

she was under the influence of something

that you had never seen her be under the influence of,

- is that right? - Right.

The defense strategy was to focus

on the level of intoxication, and I expected them to do that.

The defense is wanting to play up the fact

that Chante was messed up on alcohol and ecstasy.

The risk is that one juror might think

she probably wouldn't have acted that way

if she wouldn't have been high

or drunk, or messed up that night.

So I'm gonna cut her a little slack because of it.

Raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear...

SIEGLER: After the testimony about what all happened

to Greg Biggs is complete,

the prosecutors call his son, Brandon Biggs,

to the stand to talk about what kind of a man his dad was.

ALPERT: How old are you?

I'm 20 years old.

- ALPERT: Are you in school? - BIGGS: Yes.

ALPERT: And what kind of degree are you seeking?

A church ministries degree.

ALPERT: What kind of work did your father do?

He was self-employed as a bricklayer.

ALPERT: What kind of person was your father?

BIGGS: I'd say he was very hard-working.

Although he didn't have many friends, he was very friendly.

As a prosecutor, I'm not affected very much,

but I will never forget listening to Brandon

talk about how his father was a very friendly person.

But he didn't have very many friends.

And it was just so sad.

And I could-- and there were tears in the gallery.

ALPERT: Did your father have any kind of illness?

He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder,

and mild schizophrenia.

ALPERT: Could you tell me what the circumstances of him

losing his home and his vehicle were?

BIGGS: He had found a girlfriend.

She had wrecked her car,

and he had asked me one day if he should help her.

And I told him yes, I thought he should.

And when he helped her financially, loaning her money,

he was unable to make his truck payment.

And that's how it was taken from him.

ALPERT: So without his truck,

how was he able to continue working in his business?

He was not.

ALPERT: And ultimately, did he lose his home?

He did.

Gregory Biggs is a person that loses their livelihood,

their car, their home,

because they did an unselfish act.

They helped someone.

It painted this diametrically opposite picture

of Gregory Biggs from Chante Mallard.

It gave us a crucial piece that we needed for argument,

which is that here is the way a life is supposed to be lived.

If you want to know what a person

with character looks like,

look at the person that's the subject

of this autopsy report.

Meeting Brandon, finding out about him and his life,

that he had a connection with his father,

did something that was absolutely crucial.

That, without him, we wouldn't have had.

It humanized him.

[somber music]

I always write notes of what the defense says

in their opening statement, so that I can turn around

and use it in closing argument.

Jeff Kearney talks about it being the darkest night of all.

How can this be the darkest night for her?

She's alive.

It was dark, and his body was wracked with pain.

Gripping the door pocket,

he tried to right himself,

and he struggled to find the words.

And when Chante Mallard closed the garage door,

closed the door from the kitchen into the garage,

and turned the lights off,

it was the darkest night of Greg Biggs' life.

PHIPPS: I get the initial accident. You're scared.

You're drunk, you're stoned, whatever.

I get that.

But hours later, when you sober up,

or you're coming down or whatever,

and you still do nothing,

and you are a healthcare professional,

you intentionally waited until the person was dead.

You murdered him.

It's just evil.

KEARNEY: There's no question in this case that Chante's failure

to render aid or call for assistance

probably caused his death.

But that's not murder.

Being first chair in my closing argument,

my main focus is responding to what Jeff had to say.

His closing argument,

and his focus on the law,

his focus on how this doesn't fit from a legal standpoint.

Lots of people in the legal field

struggle with felony murder.

My experience is that lay people do not.

There's a dead body.

They're dead because of you.

That's murder.

♪♪♪

So the jury comes back in an hour,

and I would lie if I said that I wasn't nervous.

JUDGE: State ready?

- JACK: Ready, Your Honor. - JUDGE: Defense ready?

KEARNEY: We're ready, Your Honor.

Bring in the jury.

♪♪♪

JUDGE: Bring in the jury.

ALPERT: The jury comes back in an hour.

And I've learned over time,

you really can't predict anything

from jury deliberations.

We, the jury, find the defendant,

Chante Jawan Mallard guilty of the offense of murder

as charged in Count One of the indictment.

[reporter] Jurors unanimously agreed with the prosecution.

Now they must decide what price Chante Mallard will pay

for leaving Gregory Biggs to die in her car windshield.

[somber music]

The range of punishment for what she's convicted of,

for felony murder, is five to 99 years or life.

After the defense put on a very impressive array

of witnesses from Chante's world,

the defense calls Chante Mallard herself to the stand.

Typically in a criminal case,

if you're going to put a defendant on the stand,

you do it in the guilt phase,

to try to argue they're not connected to what happened.

The defense didn't do that in guilt,

and they wanted to put her on the stand in punishment,

because at that point, they needed a jury to see

what a great person she is,

that she's a first offender, that she's sorry.

Therefore, she would get the lower range of punishment,

possibly even probation.

I have ruined my family's life.

I have put people through pain.

[sobbing]

And I am so truly sorry.

I am so sorry, Brandon.

She was sympathetic to a point,

but the decisions that she made

shows that she was only thinking about her own self,

and how to get out of the situation.

It was a selfishness that spanned four months.

And even then when she was arrested, lying to the police.

She had taken the ecstasy willingly.

No one had slipped anything in her drink.

And when she talked about someone taking care of the body,

she was actually instrumental in that.

Now the prosecutors have their chance

to cross-examine Chante Mallard.

When you realized you hit somebody, you didn't think,

"Well, I've got to get some help," did you?

I didn't know what to do.

What I'm trying to do is demonstrate,

this is a person that is selfish.

This is a person that lacks a moral compass,

that has no excuse for her behavior.

I wasn't capable of making decisions, I couldn't--

ALPERT: You weren't capable of making decisions?

You made a decision to get in the car and drive, right?

Yes.

ALPERT: You made a decision to take the ecstasy.

- Yes. - ALPERT: You made a decision.

The decisions involved in driving that got you

to the point where you hit Gregory Biggs.

Yes.

And after hitting him, your ability to decide was gone?

After I was on the ecstasy,

and I just started making a lot of bad decisions,

and I was scared.

I didn't know what to do.

ALPERT: So it was the ecstasy's fault?

I mean, it was master class on cross-examination.

There was no place she could turn.

We asked the jury to hand down a life sentence.

And the jury gave her what amounted

to almost a life sentence.

She was sentenced to 50 years for murder.

[somber music]

BIGGS: There are no winners in a case like this.

Just as we all lost Greg,

you all will be losing your daughter.

One of the most impactful things that I saw in this case

was when Greg Biggs' son, Brandon, took the stand.

BIGGS: To Chante, I personally would like to say

that I would accept your apology.

But in return, I hope that you would accept my forgiveness.

Brandon's forgiveness, Brandon's compassion,

Brandon's faith never wavered from the first meeting,

to the last statement before the jury.

Every case you deal with, the prosecutor

is kind of a barometer to help you measure,

and-- and how you weigh conduct.

Because you have a tremendous amount of power.

This case stands alone.

JACK: Brandon Biggs is the embodiment

of forgiveness and compassion.

And yet, on the stand, one of the things that he said

was, "I forgive you, but consequences are still owed."

We all make mistakes.

But if you make a mistake and you realize you make a mistake,

it's not too late to do the right thing.

[somber music]