Mother of 2 missing children held without bail after previous case dropped for mental health reasons

Yahoo

3 days ago

ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A Maryland woman with a long history of severe mental illness has been held without bail after she was recently rearrested and charged with murder in the 2014 disappearance of her two children — almost three years after an earlier case against her was dropped.
A judge dismissed the previous murder charges in 2022 because Catherine Hoggle had been repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial.
But that didn't stop prosecutors from indicting Hoggle again after her recent release from a state-run psychiatric hospital where she spent the past 11 years. The new indictment marks the latest twist in a case that began when her toddler son and daughter went missing and were never found.
Catherine Hoggle, 38, was arrested Friday. She appeared in Montgomery Circuit Court for a bail review hearing Tuesday afternoon, wearing a tan jumpsuit and glasses. She sat quietly and listened to the proceedings, without showing any obvious emotion as prosecutors laid out the allegations against her.
Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy alleged that Hoggle confessed to strangling her children during a conversation with another woman attending a group-therapy session around the time of their disappearance. McCarthy also described a drawing he said Hoggle made in response to a prompt about eliminating stressors from your life: It showed children being thrown into a trash can.
'You think you have stress in your life? I just strangled my two children,' Hoggle told the woman, according to McCarthy's account.
Defense attorney says Hoggle remains mentally incompetent
Hoggle's attorney, David Felsen, criticized the state's attorney for introducing facts during what he called a '45-minute opening statement' meant for the beginning of a criminal trial, not a bail hearing.
Felsen argued that Hoggle remains mentally incompetent to stand trial. That finding hasn't changed since 2022, he said.
'As she sits, she is non-restorable,' he told the court.
But prosecutors argued she had been functioning enough over the past few weeks to show a substantial change in her mental state that allowed for her recent discharge from Maryland's Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center. Since then, McCarthy said she was simply 'free in the community,' living in a group home and walking around town. He raised concerns about the safety of a third surviving child.
Hoggle's mother also criticized the circumstances around her release from the hospital. Lindsey Hoggle told reporters after the hearing that her daughter was abruptly discharged into the community — from 'shackles and handcuffs to living on her own in a dorm-like facility.' She should be receiving psychiatric treatment, not sitting in jail, Lindsey Hoggle said.
But Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jeannie Cho ordered Hoggle held without bail because she could otherwise pose a flight risk and a 'great danger' to the community.
'There is a great deal of information that showed a concerted effort to hide herself and conceal the evidence and to be deceptive,' Cho said before announcing her ruling.
The judge noted that Hoggle is currently prescribed 22 different medications. Keeping her on this treatment regimen could be difficult in a group home environment with 'little to no supervision that I can glean,' Cho said.
It is still not exactly clear why Hoggle was released from the hospital.
First arrest was in 2014
Her children, Sarah and Jacob Hoggle, were ages 3 and 2 respectively when they were last seen in September 2014. Catherine Hoggle also went missing around the same time. The children's father reported them all missing. Hoggle was found days later, walking in a nearby town. Police said she refused to tell them where the children were.
She was initially arrested and charged with neglect and abduction, both misdemeanors. She was sent to the state-run psychiatric hospital for treatment.
Then in 2017, she was indicted on murder charges. A judge ruled she was incompetent to stand trial and imposed continuing court-ordered treatment. Under state law, authorities had five years to declare her competent to stand trial. That didn't happen, so in 2022, a Montgomery County judge dropped the charges against her, citing the five-year time limit. Hoggle was ordered to remain involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment because she was still considered a danger to herself or others.
During Tuesday's hearing, Hoggle's attorney raised questions about the strength of the state's case. He presented records showing that a court commissioner had found insufficient probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for the murder charges. In response, prosecutors took the case to a grand jury instead, which issued the indictment.
Prosecutors said nothing about that process weakens their case.
Family members seek answers
Hoggle's mother and other family members watched from the courtroom gallery, including the children's father, Troy Turner, whose shirt was emblazoned with a message seeking justice for Sarah and Jacob.
In remarks after the hearing, Turner said he still wants answers. He said he hopes that by prosecuting Hoggle again, the court system will finally reveal what happened to his children.
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