Biggs’s death was only a gruesome hit-and-run case until last week, when the medical examiner decided he would have survived if Mallard had called for help. That made it murder, and Mallard was placed under house arrest on $250,000 bail.
She and her attorney disputed the most sensational elements in the police account–that she was high on ecstasy at the time, that she and her boyfriend had sex indoors while Biggs lay moaning on top of her car and that it had taken nearly two days for the victim to die. Her lawyer said Mallard was “distraught” though not a monster. But the right word is still hard to find.
