DRUGS ARE NO EXCUSE FOR EVIL BEHAVIOR

Of all the ways to die, I have a hard time imaging a worse fate than what
happened to Gregory Biggs.

The 37-year-old homeless bricklayer was walking on the shoulder of the road
in Fort Worth, Texas when Chante Jawan Mallard, 27, came driving along that
same road in the wee hours of Oct. 26, 2001.

Her car hit him so hard his head and shoulders jammed into the windshield
and his legs were bent over the roof.

Mallard stopped briefly to try to get Biggs off her car, but when she
couldn't she drove about a mile to her home. She then called a friend to
pick her up.

Mallard and her friend went looking for her ex-boyfriend for help, but
couldn't find him and returned to her house. Mallard showed the friend into
the garage, where, by then, Biggs had died.

According to a police report, Mallard smoked marijuana, took Ecstasy and
drank heavily with a friend shortly before she drove home.

Defense attorney Jeff Kearney said Mallard was not thinking clearly because
she was in a drug-induced haze. He said it was an accident, not murder.

The former nurse's aide, now on trial, faces life in prison if convicted.

Should Mallard get any lienency from the court or society because she was
drunk and using illegal drugs?

No. This would have been a tragic accident if she had been sober. But he is
dead because she put chemicals into her body to distort her reality, and
then got behind the wheel of a motor-powered sledgehammer.

The horror of this is further compounded by Mallard's apparent selfishness,
more motivated to keep out of trouble than to aid a man she mangled and
then left to slowly die in her windshield.

An expert testified Biggs could have lived if he had received prompt
medical attention. Instead, two of her friends allegedly helped Mallard
dump the body in a park, where it was found the next day.

This is a frequent theme in these teen horror flicks, adolescents
accidentally killing someone and attempting to get out of the consequences.
But Mallard is a grown woman.

Police only found out about the incident four months later after a tipster
called to say Mallard had talked about it at a party.

Somebody needs to put an end to her party days.